Don't assume Proud Boys aren't still 'standing by'
By Garen Wintemute / For the Los Angeles Times
Remember during the 2020 presidential race when Donald Trump refused to disown right-wing violent extremists, instead telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”? We might now know what they’ve been standing by for.
After the rioters at the U.S. Capitol failed to disrupt the transfer of the presidency a few months later, and the nation turned its attention elsewhere, American University’s Cynthia Miller-Idriss warned in an interview with The New York Times: “A lot of people want to see Jan. 6 as the end of something. I think we have to consider the possibility that this was the beginning of something.” But then came successful prosecutions of many of the participants — people who “saw themselves as Donald Trump’s Army,” the prosecution said — yielding more than 1,000 convictions as of this month. The sense grew that the worst of mob violence was behind us.
Not so. Recent investigations have shown that right-wing militias generally, and the Proud Boys in particular, are reorganizing, perhaps with more supporters than ever. The Proud Boys recently marched in Springfield, Ohio, after the Trump campaign spread false claims about immigrants who live there. One reporter wrote in The Nation that such groups may evolve into America’s version of the violent mobs that helped bring Adolf Hitler to power in Germany and helped elevate Benito Mussolini in Italy.
It’s important to understand just how violent these groups are. Our research team at UC Davis has conducted a large, annual, nationally representative survey on support for and willingness to engage in political violence since 2022. That year we gathered data directly from supporters of the Proud Boys and the militia movement (and six other right-wing extremist organizations and social movements). The findings are staggering.
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